Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu United Nations Address, September 23, 2011

At National Post, "Netanyahu chides UN, seeks renewed talks with Abbas":

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, returned to the United Nations’ General Assembly Friday with all the confidence of a former ambassador, who has frequently used the assembly podium as a pulpit.

With a familiarity that almost bordered on contempt, Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in 1984-88, upbraided the General Assembly for even entertaining a Palestinian request for statehood.

“The truth is that Israel wants peace; the truth is that I want peace,” he said, adding, “We cannot achieve peace through UN resolutions.”

Mr. Netanyahu criticized the UN, calling it a “theatre of the absurd.” He noted the Security Council is now headed by Lebanon, whose government is controlled by Hezbollah, an internationally recognized terrorist group.

“It was here in 1975 that the age-old yearning of my people to restore our national life in our ancient biblical homeland was branded shamefully as racism,” he said.

“And it was here in 1980, right here, that the historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, wasn’t praised, it was denounced. And it is here, year after year, that Israel is unjustly singled out for condemnation … more often than all the other nations of the world combined.”

The Israeli leader’s message was as simple as it was blunt: “The Palestinians should first make peace with Israel and then get their state.”

If that were to happen, “Israel will not be the last state to welcome a Palestinian state into the United Nations,” he said. “We will be the first.”

Also at Legal Insurrection, "Netanyahu at the U.N. – Theater of the Absurd."